BLACK BREATH – Heavy Breathing CD
Southern Lord Records
Genre: Hardcore
Did Greg Anderson of Southern Lord Records lose a bet or what? This is not Doom which Southern Lord is some what known for along with Black Metal. This is fuckin Hardcore. Someone took a bunch of old Hardcore 7”ers from the 1980s, handed them to some young metalheads and here are the results. I’ve heard every one of these fuckin riffs years ago albeit they’re being played well on here. The vocals are as caustic and angst ridden as if they were sung by a bald headed psychopath or a spiky haired nihilist back in 1984. Back in the eighties it was common knowledge that the difference between Hardcore and Thrash was the musicianship. But this is nowhere near Thrash standards of today as in clean sounding garbage which tries to copy the past and fails miserably. Ok not all modern day Thrash bands are like that and the production on here is clean but not polished.
BLACK BREATH hail from Seattle so obviously this five piece band know about the greatest Hardcore band, in my not so humble opinion of course, ever to walk out bloodied but unbowed from the Northwest. I’m talking about POISON IDEA, the best American Hardcore band that ever lived and Pig Champion the world was never the same after your passing bro. To be honest back in the day the punk rock hippie commies hated POISON IDEA along with alot of other cool bands for a variety of reasons, all dumb reasons of course. They would’ve hated BLACK BREATH as well. Thankfully no one gives a flying fuck about what any commie hippies have to say, if any of em are still around. Does Maximum Rock n Roll magazine still exist?
I’m gonna guess and say people will try to put BLACK BREATH into the square peg of D-Beat. Here’s a fact from someone who was actually around back in the late 70s Punk era and all throughout the 80s Hardcore scene. No one ever used the term “D-Beat” instead we simply called it Hardcore because that’s what it was. In the late 80s you did have a bunch of Anarcho bands that basically stole their whole sound from DISCHARGE and even had “DIS” as part of their band names. As a joke we reviewers called them “DIS-Bands” but their sound was Hardcore, period. As far as the term “Crust” well that came from the Anarcho Punk crowd who wanted to create a sub-genre to disassociate themselves from other Hardcore bands, especially NYHC, who weren’t spouting communist/peace punk politics. Who came up with the term “D-Beat”? I’ll never know and don’t start tagging this Seattle band with it. You already have DISFEAR. And most of you losers out there think Punk Rock started with RANCID.
Yeah there’s some DISCHARGE influence on here but that band only had a handful of riffs which they used on all of their 7”ers and LPs, except when they entered the “Brave New World”. BLACK BREATH capture alot of the fury and intensity that was common with bands from LA to DC and all inbetween. The guitars have that buzz saw type of sound which just makes you wanna jump out of your chair and slam into a hippie punk. The rhythm section is flat out perfect for what these guys are following. As far as the vocals, like I said before its old school and I would know. Every two bit burg in the US had a band like this back in the 80s and they all put out demos or if they were lucky, a four song 7”er. This Seattle band is now joining the ranks of other great modern day HC acts like DOUBLE NEGATIVE who are keeping the spirit of the 80s alive and sounding authentic.
www.southernlord.com
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